When he's bad, Paul Weller is very bad. But when he's good, he still has one of the most soulful, gorgeous voices that the country has ever produced. During his set at this year's Glastonbury, Weller veered between both camps, sending the audience into snoozes as he noodled and dawdled through 20 minute jams before whipping out the Big Guns and prompting a mass of air guitars with a cheeky thrash through 'A Town Called Malice'.
While 'Are You Trying To Be Lonely?' isn't a pumping, punky Jam record - in fact with its woozy jazz sound, the tunes closer to Jools Holland's boogie woogie than anything the 'Going Underground' gang produced - Andy Lewis does appear to have awoken Paul Weller's mojo from its slumbers. With a marching Northern Soul backbeat, honking horns and swaggering melody, this record should be thumped out of every car stereo on a gloomy day, because it will probably force the sun out from behind the clouds with its good-time vibes. Weller's holler soars and blooms with colour, when other occasions it has grated and stumbled.
Weller is often accused of thieving from past glories, re-hashing them in a dull, grey, Ocean Colour Scene-shaped, predictable format. But with his latest collaboration it should work the other way around, with listeners digging through their parents' record collections looking for similar tunes to this brassy, summery, funk-fest and calling them their own.
